By DunePost Investigative Team
April 17, 2025
Over 2.8 million asylum cases are currently pending in U.S. immigration courts, with some applicants waiting more than a decade for a decision that will ultimately be delivered in a hearing lasting less than 15 minutes. Asylum Backlog: The 10-Year Wait for a 10-Minute Hearing. Behind this staggering statistic is the story of Carlos Mendoza, who hasn’t seen his wife and two young daughters in five years after a clerical error separated their asylum applications.
“When I fled Venezuela, I thought we would be reunited within months,” says Mendoza, now 42, who works as a dishwasher in Atlanta while living in a basement apartment with three other men. “My daughters were 7 and 9 when I last saw them. Now they’re teenagers, and they’re forgetting what I look like.”
Last week, Mendoza received notice that his asylum hearing, originally scheduled for June 2025, has been postponed again until March 2027. His wife and daughters remain in Bogotá, Colombia, where they fled after receiving threats from government officials. Their case is managed by a different court and is on a separate timeline altogether.
“I’m not asking for much, just a yes or no,” Mendoza says, his voice breaking. “Even if they deny me, at least I can plan my life. But this waiting? This is its kind of torture.”
Mendoza’s limbo is far from unique. The asylum backlog has transformed from a manageable administrative challenge into a humanitarian crisis that keeps millions trapped in legal uncertainty for years, often surviving in dangerous conditions, unable to work legally, and separated from their loved ones.
Immigration courts in the United States, overseen by the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), have been chronically underfunded for decades. But a perfect storm of events since 2016 has pushed the system beyond its breaking point.
“We’re essentially running a 21st-century caseload on a 1990s infrastructure,” explains Nadia Rodriguez, a former immigration judge who now teaches law at Georgetown University. “The average immigration judge handles over 3,500 cases annually, more than triple what federal district court judges manage, with far fewer resources.”
Despite modest increases in funding during the Biden administration and early efforts by the Trump administration in its second term, the backlog has continued to grow exponentially. As of March 2025, the average wait time for an initial asylum hearing exceeds six years in major metropolitan areas, with some jurisdictions like Newark and San Francisco reporting wait times approaching 12 years.
A critical problem is the disparity between resources and need. While asylum applications have increased by more than 600% since 2010, the number of immigration judges has grown by only 42%. Currently, fewer than 700 immigration judges are tasked with handling nearly 3 million pending cases.
Maria Santos, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, points to outdated technology as a significant contributor to delays. Until 2023, many courts were still using paper filing systems. The electronic filing system that was finally implemented nationwide is plagued with glitches and compatibility issues, causing further delays.
Perhaps most devastating for asylum seekers is the work authorization trap. Current regulations prevent asylum applicants from applying for work permits until 180 days after filing their application, but administrative delays and the “asylum clock” system often extend this waiting period to well over a year.
Without legal work authorization, asylum seekers face an impossible choice: remain in poverty or work illegally, risking exploitation and potential damage to their asylum cases.
“Only about 23% of asylum seekers secure legal representation, and those without attorneys are nearly five times more likely to be denied asylum,” says Diego Alvarez, director of the Immigrant Justice Project. “It’s a system that practically guarantees failure for those without resources.”
The statistics are stark: asylum seekers with attorneys have approximately a 60% grant rate, compared to just 13% for those who represent themselves. Yet legal aid organizations can meet less than a quarter of the need, and private attorneys typically charge between $5,000 and $15,000 for asylum representation, an impossible sum for most applicants.
“We’re turning away ten desperate clients for every one we can help,” explains Janelle Wong of Chicago Asylum Legal Services. “Most of these people have legitimate claims that would likely be approved with proper representation. Instead, they’re forced to navigate one of the most complex areas of American law by themselves, often with limited English proficiency.”
In a small, one-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s northwest side, Luisa Portillo marks another day on the calendar, 1,096 days since she and her son fled gang violence in Honduras. Three years of living in a constant state of uncertainty.
“When we arrived, Mateo was eight years old. Now he’s eleven, and we’re still waiting for our first court date,” she says, showing a notice scheduling her hearing for December 2028, nearly seven years after she filed her application.
Portillo, a former accountant, now cleans houses for cash, earning well below minimum wage and lacking any protections against exploitation. Last year, she worked for three weeks for a client who ultimately refused to pay her $900 in wages.
“I couldn’t report it because I don’t have work authorization,” she explains. “My son needs medication for his asthma, and we can barely afford food and rent. But what choice do I have?”
Eighty miles away, in a suburb of Milwaukee, former Syrian engineer Ahmed Khalid faces similar challenges. With a master’s degree in electrical engineering and fifteen years of experience managing infrastructure projects, Khalid now drives for rideshare companies using a borrowed account, a common but risky practice among asylum seekers desperate for income.
“I was respected in Damascus. I built power stations and trained junior engineers,” Khalid says. “Now I’m afraid every day that I’ll be reported and my asylum case will be damaged.”
Khalid fled Syria in 2019 after being targeted for refusing to work on a government military project. His first asylum hearing is scheduled for 2026, seven years after he applied.
“My brother was an engineer too. He stayed in Syria and was killed in 2021,” Khalid says, showing a photo of his brother on his phone. “I’m alive, but sometimes I wonder if this half-life of waiting is living.”
The psychological impact of extended uncertainty cannot be overstated. A 2024 study published in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health found that asylum seekers experiencing extended case delays showed significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, and PTSD compared to refugees whose cases were resolved quickly.
“The human brain isn’t designed to handle prolonged uncertainty,” explains Dr. Aisha Johnson, a psychiatrist who works with asylum seekers in Boston. “These individuals are in a constant state of hypervigilance, unable to settle or begin healing from their traumas because they don’t know if they’ll be sent back to the dangerous situations they fled.”
Critics argue that the asylum backlog isn’t merely a result of resource constraints—it’s a feature of a system intentionally designed to discourage migration by making the process as difficult as possible.
“There’s a bipartisan failure here,” says Congressman Luis Mendez (D-CA), who has pushed for immigration court reforms since 2019. “Republicans openly state they want to deter asylum seekers through harsh policies, while Democrats talk about humanitarian approaches but have failed to prioritize the resources needed to make the system function.”
Immigration policy experts point out that Congress hasn’t passed comprehensive immigration reform since 1990, despite dramatic changes in global migration patterns and humanitarian needs.
The situation has created what policy experts call a “doom loop” in the asylum system: as backlogs grow, more migrants are forced into legal limbo, creating greater strain on communities and fueling anti-immigrant sentiment, which in turn makes political solutions even more difficult to achieve.
“Each administration tweaks around the edges, but none have addressed the fundamental problem: our asylum system was designed to handle thousands of cases per year, not millions,” explains former DHS official Thomas Chen. “We’re trying to use a garden hose to put out a forest fire.”
The second Trump administration has proposed controversial reforms, including mass hiring of immigration judges on limited-term contracts, eliminating certain appeals processes, and implementing stricter credible fear standards. Critics argue these changes prioritize speed over fairness, while supporters contend they’re necessary emergency measures.
Meanwhile, local communities bear the brunt of federal inaction.
In Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, the Community Resource Center operates beyond capacity, with asylum seekers lining up before dawn for assistance with basic needs.
“We’ve gone from helping 200 asylum seekers monthly in 2020 to over 2,000 per month in 2025,” says Elena Rodriguez, the center’s director. “Our food pantry runs out within hours, and we have families sleeping in our waiting room because shelters are full.”
Chicago’s experience reflects a national pattern. As asylum seekers wait years for their cases to be heard, they concentrate in communities with established immigrant populations and support services, placing immense pressure on local resources.
The city’s shelter system, designed to provide temporary emergency housing, now serves as long-term housing for thousands. City data shows the average asylum seeker stays in Chicago’s shelter system for 14 months, up from just 3 months in 2020.
“We’re housing over 8,000 asylum seekers in a system built for 4,000,” explains Marcus Johnson, deputy commissioner for Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services. “We’ve converted warehouses, closed schools, and even office buildings into makeshift shelters, but it’s not sustainable.”
The financial strain is substantial. Chicago spent over $250 million on asylum seeker services in 2024 alone, with only about 30% covered by federal emergency funds.
However, research suggests that investments in immigrant integration pay long-term dividends. A 2023 study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that immigrants who receive adequate support during their first two years ultimately contribute approximately $1.52 to the local economy for every $1 invested in their integration.
“The irony is that many of these asylum seekers have skills our economy desperately needs,” notes economist Sarah Peterson. “We have a nursing shortage, yet we have thousands of experienced healthcare workers sitting idle in shelters because they can’t work legally.”
Experts and advocates point to several reforms that could address the backlog crisis:
Some progress is already underway. In late 2024, USCIS expanded the Asylum Officer Rule, allowing asylum officers to decide straightforward cases rather than referring them to immigration courts. This change is expected to divert approximately 20% of new asylum cases from the court system.
The Justice for Asylum Seekers Act, currently stalled in Congress, would provide $500 million for court modernization and add 300 immigration judge teams over three years.
“These aren’t partisan solutions, they’re practical ones,” says Judge Maria Gonzalez, who served in immigration courts for 24 years. “No one benefits from a system this dysfunctional, regardless of their politics.”
While systemic reforms require political action, individuals can make an immediate difference in asylum seekers’ lives:
“Every day that passes without reform is another day that families remain separated and people’s lives remain on hold,” says Carlos Mendoza, the Venezuelan asylum seeker who hasn’t seen his family in five years. “I just want a chance to work legally, to contribute to this country, and to hug my daughters again.”
As policymakers debate reforms, millions like Mendoza continue to wait, trapped between the dangers they fled and a system too overwhelmed to process their claims.
Their futures hang in the balance, measured not in days or months, but in years, often for hearings that, when they finally occur, last less than ten minutes.
“I’ve had cases where I spent more time reading the file on my lunch break than the actual hearing lasted. Ten years of someone’s life decided in under fifteen minutes. That’s not justice that’s assembly-line processing.”
— Former Immigration Judge Nadia Rodriguez
“The cruelest part is not knowing. Every day I wake up and think, ‘Maybe today I’ll get an answer.’ This has been my life for six years now.”
— Ahmed Khalid, asylum seeker from Syria
This investigation was supported by a grant from the Center for Migration Reporting. Lauren Martinez contributed reporting from Chicago.
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